Warhammer Tournament Update

Here’s the logo for the upcoming Warhammer tournament at the end of this month!

The inevitable gong show that is purchasing a house and the resulting move, expenses, time commitments and hassles severely hampered my ability to update this as much as I’d like during the last half of May and all of June.

For those curious about the tournament’s particulars, here’s some information as found in the player’s pack:

When: Saturday, July 25, 2009.

Where: Southcentre Community Room, Customer Service Center

(Where Ticketmaster is: lower level by the Bay entrance)

Cost:$20 due (with army list) by Saturday, July 18.

Details: Four battles in one day army points limit is 1,999 points.

Discount coupon given when entry is paid for.

Schedule:

9:30 -Sign in, registration & Army Display Set up

9:45 – 10:15 -Players inspect & judge armies for painting

10:15 – 12:05 -Game 1

12:15 – 14:05 -Game 2

14:05 – 14:50 -Lunch Break

15:00 – 16:50 -Game 3

17:00 – 18:50 -Game 4

18:50 – 19:10 -Final Scoring Submitted

19:20 – Results announced and awards presented

Thoughts

I think this tournament will be pretty interesting–just as the last one was–because we’ll be using scoring systems that have barely (if at all) been used around these parts. Last tournament, it was with us including the Australian “Army Tiers” scores in our scoring; this time, I’m talking about another Aussie invention (as far as I know): what I’ve dubbed the “Comparative Scoring System” …which both Kat and I had been talking to players about at the last tournament.

Comparative scoring is used for the soft-score categories of sportsmanship and army composition, following the basic idea that, with these two categories, how you’ve done is just as relevant as how others have done. This system is not dissimilar to how schools use the bell curve when marking–with the exception that this system doesn’t demand that some one get penalized excessively despite their performance.

The Way it Works

I’ll just use Sportsmanship as the example here. The first big difference with this system is that the score is done at thet conclusion of the tournament, once all games have been played. Players score their opponents as usual (with us, it’s on a scale of 1 to 5); the big difference is that some scores can only be handed out once, while others can be given more than once.

In this tournament, with four games being played, a player would be only able to give ONE opponent a 5 out of 5 Sportsmanship score. The same is true for the scores of 1, 2 and 4; while a score of 3 (the average score) could be given out to two opponents. Essentially, this system assumes that when players score each other, they’re less scoring each other according to some universal arbitrary standard, and more scoring according to their experience during that tournament.

This means that in each player’s experience at a tournament, only two of his four opponents can be given a score of 3–the average–in the most real sense. Across four opponents at a tournament the likelihood that each opponent played was exactly as sportsmanlike as each other opponent is very small. It also means that no player can score everybody top marks, nor can any player decide to “zero bomb” all his opponents.

I’m a little nervous about players being able to adjust ALL their composition and sportsman scores after playing all day in a very meta-game fashion, but I do like that this system will better encourage a points spread between players.

Which, of course, makes my job as a judge a little easier.

Saturday, July 25, 2009.

Where: Southcentre Community Room,

Customer Service Center

(On lower level between Centre Court & the Bay)

Southcentre Mall

100 – Anderson Road SE

Cost: $20 due by 7:30pm Saturday, July 18.

Schedule: The tournament will consist of four games played on one day: